edited by Yoshifumi Masunaga (Ochanomizu University, Japan) & Stefano Spaccapietra (EPFL, Switzerland)

This Switzerland–Japan Joint Seminar on Multimedia and Databases was held to achieve at least three goals. First, it enabled us to present and discuss our recent research results and exchange our ideas for further promotion of science and technology. The second goal was to establish a friendly relationship between the Swiss and the Japanese. The last, but not least, aim was to disseminate information about our plans by publishing the proceedings of this seminar. We thought that publishing the outcome of the seminar would be essential in order not to store the treasure — the seminar results — secretly.

• Interoperability and Flexible Interactive Document Design for Distance Learning (C Vanoirbeek & O A Khaled)
• Workflow Modeling from a Database Point of View (K Yokota & T Kunishima)
• High Performance Parallel Association Rule Mining and Its Dynamic Load Balancing Mechanism Over Homo/Heterogeneous PC Cluster System (M Kitsuregawa et al.)
• The Virtual World Database System — Its Concept, Design, and Prototyping (Y Masunaga & C Watanabe)
• Enhancing Databases by Introducing Spatial Data Types for Non-Geographical Applications (A Makinouchi & S Kuroki)
• All Together Now — Towards Integrating the World's Information Systems (K R Dittrich & D Jonscher)
• Higher Order Databases and Multimedia Information (H-J Schek & R Weber)
• Access Control and Views in Web Data Management (K Tanaka et al.)
• and other papers